Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
A Critical Guide

This Critical Guide provides succinct and in-depth explorations of cutting-edge debates concerning the philosophical significance of Kant's revolutionary Critique of Pure Reason.

James R. O'Shea (Edited by)

9781107427501, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 January 2019

311 pages, 5 b/w illus.
23 x 15.3 x 2.1 cm, 0.5 kg

'The individual essays of this volume are of high quality and fit together well, even when - or perhaps especially when - they defend contradictory positions on a given issue … This will be a book that Kant scholars will want to read.' James Messina, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Kant's monumental book the Critique of Pure Reason was arguably the most conceptually revolutionary work in the history of philosophy and its impact continues to be felt throughout philosophical debates today. However, it is a notoriously difficult work whose basic meaning and lasting philosophical significance are both subject to ongoing controversy. In this Critical Guide, an international team of leading Kant scholars addresses the challenges, clarifying Kant's basic terms and arguments, and engaging with the debates that surround this central text. Providing compact explanations along with cutting-edge interpretations of nearly all of the main themes and arguments in Kant's Critique, this volume provides well-balanced arguments on such controversial topics as the interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism, conceptualism and non-conceptual content in perception, and the soundness of his transcendental arguments. This volume will engage readers of Kant at all levels.

Introduction James R. O'Shea
1. Kant on the distinction between sensibility and understanding Eric Watkins
2. Knowledge and its object Stephen Engstrom
3. Transcendental idealism and the transcendental aesthetic: reading the critique of pure reason forwards Lucy Allais
4. Kant on the ideality of space and the argument from Spinozism Michela Massimi
5. How precise is Kant's table of judgments? Michael Wolff (translated by Kenneth R. Westphal)
6. Kant's 'Transcendental Deduction' Barry Stroud
7. Kant's critique of the layer-cake conception of human mindedness in the B deduction James Conant
8. The critical and 'empty' representation 'I think' Patricia Kitcher
9. Kant's mathematical principles of pure understanding Lisa Shabel
10. Kant's dynamical principles: the analogies of experience Kenneth R. Westphal
11. The refutation of idealism Ralf M. Bader
12. The antinomies: an entirely natural antithetic of human reason Graham Bird
13. The ideal of reason John J. Callanan
14. Knowledge, discipline, system, hope: the fate of metaphysics in the doctrine of method Andrew Chignell.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]